THE  PENNY  PIPER 
OF   SARANAC 


STEPHEN  CHALMERS 


LIBRARY 

UNIvEHSlTr  OF 
CAL.FOKN  A 

SAN  D.E3O 


/ 


The  Penny  Piper  of  Saranac 


:  Cofltt  Print  tifjright  h, 


THE   SARANAC    LAKE   STEVENSON    MEMORIAL 

DnSIGNF.I)    BY    GUTZON    HORGI.tlM 


THE  PENNY  PIPER  OF 
SARANAC 

An  Episode  in  Stevensoii's  Life 

BY 
STEPHEN  CHALMERS 

WITH  PREFACE  BY 
LORD  GUTHRIE 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

MDCCCCXVI 


COPYRIGHT,    1912,    BY  THE  OUTLOOK   COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,    1916,    BY    STEPHEN   CHALMERS 

ALL    RIGHTS   RESERVED 


A  deal  of  Ariel,  just  a  streak  of  Puck, 
Much  Antony,  of  Hamlet  most  of  all, 
And  something  of  the  Shorter- Catechist. 
W.  E.  HENLEY 


PREFACE 

By  Lord  Guthrie 

"THE  PENNY  PIPER  OF  SARANAC  " 
is  a  most  sane  and  real  sketch  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  I  call  it 
a  sketch  of  Stevenson,  and  not 
merely  of  his  life  at  Saranac,  for 
it  shows  much  insight  into  his 
character,  which  was  so  complex 
that  many  people  of  broad  minds 
but  narrow  sympathies  thought  it 
contradictory. 

His  Puritanism  was  every  bit  as 
genuine  as  his  Bohemianism.  Such 
people  could  not,  and  their  pres- 

t: vii: 


Preface 

ent-day  representatives  cannot,  un- 
derstand this.  But  that  was,  and 
is,  their  fault ;  not  his.  When  peo- 
ple ask  me  what  I  thought  of 
Stevenson,  when,  in  the  early  sev- 
enties, we  were  much  together  in 
Edinburgh,  at  college  and  in  the 
Speculative  Society,  and  in  17 
Heriot  Row,  his  father's  house,  I 
usually  reply,  "  Which  Stevenson? 
I  knew  at  least  four! " 

"The  Penny  Piper  of  Saranac" 
has  attained  what  I  thought  the 
impossible,  for  there  is  not  a  "chest- 
nut" in  it!  Most  Stevensoniana 
are  full  of  them,  always  old,  some- 
times stale,  and  more  than  occasion- 

viii 


Preface 

ally  rotten,  in  the  sense  that  they 
attribute  to  him  sayings  and  actions 
which  those  who  knew  Stevenson 
as  I  knew  him  are  able  to  say  in- 
stinctively he  could  never,  and 
would  never,  have  said  or  done. 

Gutzon  Borglum,  the  sculptor, 
in  his  Saranac  memorial  bas-relief, 
has  got  beneath  the  surface  and 
behind  the  mask  as  Saint-Gaudens 
( fine  as  his  bas-relief  is,  as  a  work 
of  art)  never  did.  I  liked  the  first 
sight  of  Borglum' s  work; 'and  it 
grows  on  me.  It  has  charm,  and 
it  has  strength,  and  it  has  pathos. 
It  is  the  invalid,  but  the  invalid 
who  can  say,  "O  Pain!  Where  is 

[  i*  3 


Preface 

thy  victory?"  It  is  the  fascinating 
personality  of  a  man  of  genius 
who,  with  all  his  gaiety  of  manner 
and  desire  to  give  pleasure,  was 
yet,  in  a  matter  of  essential  prin- 
ciple, like  flint  —  a  block  of  iron 
painted  to  look  like  a  lath! 

Swanston  Cottage, 

Colinton, 
Midlothian,  Scotland 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

THE  following  brief  sketch  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson's  life  at 
Saranac  Lake  during  the  winter 
of  1887-88,  was  done  in  collabo- 
ration with  the  late  Dr.  Edward 
Livingston  Trudeau,  who  carefully 
edited  the  original  manuscript,  pay- 
ing particular  attention  to  the  pre- 
cise wording,  so  far  as  his  memory 
served  him,  of  the  various  conver- 
sations between  the  distinguished 
patient  and  himself. 

The  essay  has  had  a  lively  ca- 
reer which,  the  author  hopes,  is 


Author  s  Note 


only  beginning.  First  published 
in  the  Outlook,  it  was  later  repro- 
duced from  a  backwoods  printshop 
as  a  souvenir  of  the  unveiling  at 
Saranac  Lake  of  Gutzon  Borg- 
lum's  memorial  tablet,  erected  by 
the  Stevenson  Society.  Stevenson 
himself  might  have  described  that 
modest  edition  as  "a  penny  plain  " 
and  the  present  one,  in  the  dig- 
nity of  real  covers,  as  "  twopence 
colored."  To  Munsey's  the  author 
acknowledges  permission  to  repro- 
duce the  verses  which  appear  else- 
where. 

Since  the  essay's  first  publication 
many  things  connected  with  it  have 

[xii] 


Author  s  Note 

transpired.  The  present  writer's 
collaborator  has  passed  to  his  de- 
served long  rest.  He  died  a  few 
days  after  the  lasting  bronze  had 
been  uncovered  "at  the  cottage 
up  the  road "  in  honor  of  his 
quondam  friend  and  patient ;  and 
his  last  message  from  the  sick- 
chamber  was,  "  I  am  glad  to  have 
lived  to  see  it  done." 

It  is  not  claiming  too  much  to 
say  that  it  was  directly  the  influ- 
ence of  "  The  Penny  Piper  of 
Saranac"  that  led  to  the  creation 
of  the  Saranac  Lake  Stevenson 
Memorial.  While  the  author  was 
working  on  the  manuscript,  Rob- 

C  xiii  3 


Author  s  Note 


ert  Hobart  Davis,  a  well-known 
New  York  editor,  visited  the  Adi- 
rondacks  and  heard,  through  the 
writer,  some  of  the  late  Dr.  Tru- 
deau's  reminiscent  anecdotes  of 
Stevenson.  Realizing  for  the  first 
time,  perhaps,  that  at  Saranac 
Lake  the  famous  Scot  had  really 
produced  his  best  contributions 
to  English  literature,  Mr.  Davis 
started  an  agitation  for  the  erec- 
tion of  a  suitable  memorial.  He 
enlisted  the  interest  of  his  friend, 
Gutzon  Borglum,  the  noted  sculp- 
tor, who  created  his  design  as  a 
personal  tribute  to  the  genius  of 
R.  L.  S.  The  committee  which 

xiv 


Author  s  Note 


had  the  work  in  hand  is  now  re- 
solved into  the  Stevenson  Society 
of  America,  with  an  increasing 
membership  and  a  rapidly  grow- 
ing collection  of  Stevensoniana. 

Since  the  first  publication  of 
"The  Penny  Piper  of  Saranac" 
its  author  has  heard  but  two  anec- 
dotes which  might  have  been  in- 
cluded in  the  original  essay. 

During  Stevenson's  stay  at  the 
Baker  Cottage  in  the  mountain 
hamlet,  the  Church  of  St.  Luke 
the  Beloved  Physician,  founded  by 
Dr.  Trudeau,  had  recently  been 
built.  Stevenson's  mother,  who 
was  staying  with  him  in  Saranac 

[XV] 


Author  s  Note 


Lake,  was  much  interested  in  the 
church's  affairs.  It  is  well  known 
that  the  author  had  a  strong  aver- 
sion to  hero-worshipers  and  lion- 
hunters —  especially  of  the  more 
inquisitive  sex ;  so  when  Mrs. 
Estella  Martin,  a  member  of  an 
old  Adirondack  family,  drove  up 
to  the  cottage  to  confer  with  Mrs. 
Stevenson  about  a  proposed  church 
supper,  R.  L.  S.  took  refuge  in  his 
"cubbyhole"  study  and  firmly 
shut  the  door.  His  mother  pre- 
pared tea  for  the  guest  and  sud- 
denly said,  "I  would  like  you  to 
meet  my  son,  Louis." 

Mrs.  Martin,  who  had  heard 

C  xvi  3 


Author  s  Note 


of  the  novelist's  pet  aversion,  felt 
slightly  nervous.  Mrs.  Stevenson 
went  to  the  study  door  and  there 
followed  a  whispered  colloquy 
through  a  mere  chink.  Presently 
Stevenson  came  into  the  room, 
sat  down  by  the  stove,  and,  after 
a  strained  minute  or  two,  asked 
Mrs.  Martin  if  he  might  smoke. 
The  moment  his  cigarette  was 
alight  the  ice  was  broken  and- 

"  I  had  two  hours  of  R.  L.  S.," 
says  Mrs.  Martin,  "  and  he  was  the 
most  interesting  man  I  ever  met." 

Later,  it  was  planned  to  give 
the  church  benefit  supper  at  the 
old  Berkeley  Inn  in  the  village. 

[xvii  ] 


Author  s  Note 

On  the  promise  of  Stevenson's 
mother  that  she  would  induce  her 
son  —  somehow  —  to  be  present, 
the  church  ladies  sold  every  avail- 
able seat,  except  one  —  that  re- 
served for  the  lion  of  the  occasion. 
Despite  the  elder  Mrs.  Steven- 
son's assurances,  up  to  the  last 
moment  Robert  Louis  refused  to 
be  a  party  to  the  party.  "  Good 
Heavens  ! "  he  exclaimed.  "  They 
might  ask  me  to  make  a  speech ! " 
In  the  end  the  ladies  had  to 
kidnap  him  bodily.  At  first  he  was 
silent,  even  morose,  when  he  took 
his  seat  at  the  supper  table  in  the 
old  inn ;  but  suddenly  the  humor 

T  xviii  1 


Author  s  Note 


of  the  situation  struck  him  and 
his  chameleon-like  mood  changed 
color.  He  threw  himself  into  the 
affair  with  a  spirit  that  was  more 
Stevensonian  than  churchlike.  He 
not  only  proceeded  to  enjoy  him- 
self, but  helped  to  make  that 
church  supper  a  memorable  suc- 
cess ;  and  before  he  escorted  his 
mother  home,  he  insisted  upon 
making  a  speech. 

All  record  of  that  speech  is  lost 
—  more's  the  pity!  Mrs.  Martin 
does  not  remember  just  what  he 
said,  but  — 

"It  was  —  like  him." 

No  doubt  it  was ! 

S.  C. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  SARANAC  LAKE  STEVENSON  ME- 
MORIAL DESIGNED  BY  GuTZON  BoRG- 

LUM Frontispiece 

THE  ROOM  WHERE  STEVENSON  WROTE 
"A  CHRISTMAS  SERMON,"  "THE 
LANTERN-BEARERS,"  ETC.  ...  8 

THE  STEVENSON  COTTAGE  AT  SARANAC 
LAKE 8 

THE  STEVENSON  COTTAGE    ....     48 
Andrew  Baker  discussing  R.  L.  S. 
with  a  Literary  Pilgrim 

THE  VERANDA  WHERE  STEVENSON 
WALKED  AND  DREAMED  .  .  .  .  48 

GUTZON  BORGLUM  AND  HIS  TRIBUTE 
TO  R.  L.  S 60 

MR.  AND  MRS.  ANDREW  BAKER    .     .     60 


The  Penny  Piper  of  Saranac 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

OUT  of  the  land  of  the  ancient  bards 

A  wandering  minstrel  strayed  ; 
Courage  and  hope  were  the  song  he  sang, 

And  faith  was  the  string  he  played. 
"I  care  not  what  the  end,"  he  cried, 

"So  the  road  be  fair  and  free  ; 
For  the  greater  gift  of  life  is  his 

Who  travels  cheerily!" 

Earth  was  his  house  and  heaven  his  roof; 

Sun,  moon,  and  stars  his  light ; 
Voices  of  wind  and  wood  and  wave 

His  music  day  and  night. 
Over  his  clouds  the  lark  sang  still ; 

And  when  the  light  was  gone, 
Thrilling  the  dark  of  crouching  doom, 

His  nightingale  sang  on. 

So  let  us  be,  as  the  minstrel  sang, 

Of  faith,  and  hope,  and  love, 
Though  the  snarling  waters  scowl  beneath, 

And  thunder  rolls  above. 
After  the  ram,  the  night  of  stars  ; 

After  the  night,  the  dawn  5 
And  that  day  goes  down  to  a  splendid  death, 

Which  lights  another's  morn! 


The  Penny  Piper 
of  Saranac 

HE  called  himself  the  Penny  Piper, 
and  apologized  to  his  friends  be- 
cause sometimes  his  whistle  ex- 
ploded with  strange  noises  and  had 
to  be  patched  with  sticking-plaster. 
Yet  when  he  played  on  his  pipe  the 
whole  world  listened,  fascinated 
even  by  the  strange  noises ;  and  the 
army  of  earth's  children  that  fol- 
lowed him  —  that  is  following  him 
still  —  was  greater  than  the  Pied 
Piper  of  Hamelin  ever  enthralled. 

[3  ] 


The  Penny  Piper 

He  was  an  odd  fellow  to  look  at, 
as,  of  course,  a  magic  piper  should 
be.  Eagle-beaked  and  eagle-eyed, 
his  face  was  ever  touched  with  a 
Pan-like  humor,  "a  deal  of  Ariel, 
just  a  streak  of  Puck."  Whimsical, 
purposeful,  quick-tempered,  gen- 
erous, selfish,  lovable,  fierce,  for- 
giving—  a  human  paradox. 

This  was  the  Penny  Piper  of 
Saranac,  and  he  was  something  of 
a  mystery  to  all  who  knew  him  in 
the  little  Adirondack  village.  They 
did  not  know  that  he  was  a  great 
man,  for  he  never  happened  to 
mention  the  fact  himself,  and  even 
the  beginnings  of  the  world  were 


of  Saranac 

away  on  the  other  side  of  forty 
miles  of  tangled  forest. 

He  did  not  fish.  He  did  not 
hunt.  He  lacked  the  principal  vir- 
tue of  man  in  the  wilderness  - 
physical  strength ;  and  for  a  living 
he  seemed  only  to  tootle  upon  a 
penny  whistle  and  cut  a  fantastic 
figure  upon  skates  on  the  lake  be- 
hind the  cottage  where  he  lived. 

The  cottage  was  "a  hat-box  on 
a  hill,"  as  the  Penny  Piper  himself 
said.  All  the  winds  of  heaven  blew 
around  it.  Below,  the  Saranac 
River  snarled  and  guggled  under 
its  piled-up  jam  of  ice.  Beyond, 
Mount  Pisgah  glowered  under 

C  5] 


The  Penny  Piper 

icicled  brows  at  Mount  Baker  be- 
hind the  cottage.  The  Penny  Piper 
said  the  only  redeeming  feature  of 
the  place  was  that  it  reminded  him 
of  some  place  else. 

Most  of  all  was  he  a  mystery 
to  his  landlady  and  her  lord.  The 
Penny  Piper  burned  holes  in  Mrs. 
Baker's  sitting-room  mantelpiece 
with  the  live  ends  of  his  cigarettes. 
In  the  evenings  he  would  play  An- 
cient Mariner  to  Andrew  Baker's 
Wedding  Guest.  The  Piper  would 
talk  to  the  woodsman,  uttering 
strange  matters,  until  Andrew's 
eyes  grew  heavy  and  his  head  nod- 
ded, and  he  was  lulled  to  sleep  in 

C   6] 


of  Saranac 

his  chair  by  the  magic  spell  of  a 
genius. 

In  the  daytime,  when  the  bliz- 
zard piled  snowdrifts  window-high, 
the  Penny  Piper  made  "  big  medi- 
cine "  in  his  little  room  under  the 
southern  gable  of  the  "hat-box." 
In  this  room  there  was  an  old  desk 
adorned  with  pens,  ink,  and  pa- 
per ;  also  a  piano  —  and  the  penny 
whistle. 

"  He  tootles  the  whistle  better  'n 
he  plays  the  piano!"  said  Mrs. 
Baker  to  her  spouse. 

"And  a  sight  oftener,"  said  the 
woodsman. 

Of  course  he  did!  Who  ever 

C   7  3 


The  Penny  Piper 

heard  of  Ariel,  or  Puck,  or  Pan 
playing  a  piano  ?  True,  there  were 
times  when  the  Penny  Piper's 
hands  grew  numb  with  cold.  Then 
he  would  get  up  from  the  table  and 
make  a  fierce  attack  upon  Bee- 
thoven with  a  heavy  bunch  of  rusty 
keys.  But  he  would  usually  wind 
up  with  a  Jacobite  air  upon  the 
penny  whistle,  after  which  he 
would  resume  with  the  pen.  You 
remember  his  words :  "  To  earn  a 
little  and  to  spend  a  little  less ;  to 
make,  upon  the  whole,  a  family 
happier  for  his  presence." 

Yet  in  this  little  cottage  in  the 
Adirondack  wilderness,  during  the 

C  8] 


THE   STEVENSON   COTTAGE   AT   SARANAC   LAKE 


THE   ROOM   WHERE   STEVENSON   WROTE   "A  CHRISTMAS 
SERMON,"   "THE   LANTERN-BEARERS,"   ETC. 


of  Saranac 

bitter  winter  of  18  87-8  8, the  Penny 
Piper  played  some  of  his  sweet- 
est melodies;  his  notes  reached 
their  purest  and  clearest  heights ; 
and  to-day  what  he  wrote  under 
that  little  southern  gable,  where 
the  drift-snow  piled  up  against  the 
window,  is  bound  in  morocco  and 
gold,  is  scrolled  on  vellum  and 
hung  as  mottoes  in  garret  and  man- 
sion alike,  in  the  offices  of  com- 
merce and  in  the  waiting-rooms  of 
pain,  in  the  temples  of  wisdom  and 
in  the  heart  of  humanity,  for  it 
brings  strength  to  the  strong  and 
cheer  to  the  sick. 

These  but  conspired  with  his 


The  Penny  Piper 

genius  and  the  keen  air  of  the 
hills  to  such  results  as  "  Pulvis  et 
Umbra,"  "  The  Lantern-Bearers," 
"  Gentlemen,"  "  Beggars,"  "  A 
Christmas  Sermon,"  and  last  (per- 
haps least)  "The  Master  of  Bal- 
lantrae,"  which  ends  in  story  where 
it  was  begun  in  fact  —  in  the  fro- 
zen forest  under  the  shadow  of 
Mount  Baker. 

When  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
lived  there,  Saranac  Lake  village 
was  but  a  backwoods  hamlet.  The 
first  locomotive  had  not  yet  star- 
tled the  buck  and  the  bear. 

The  community  which  is  now 

c  1°  n 


of  Saranac 

the  metropolis  of  the  Adirondacks 
had  in  1887  less  than  a  handful  of 
the  thousands  who  have  since  fol- 
lowed the  trail  first  blazed  in  that 
region  by  Dr.  Edward  L.  Tru- 
deau,  himself  a  victim  of  tuber- 
culosis. Everybody  knows  why. 
Stevenson  went  to  Saranac,  and 
everybody  knows  that  Dr.  Tru- 
deau  was  his  physician. 

It  has  been  said,  upon  hearsay, 
that  Dr.  Trudeau,  the  famous 
head  of  the  Adirondack  Cottage 
Sanitarium,1  and  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  did  not  get  along  to- 

1  Since  Dr.  Trudeau's  death,  "  Trudeau 
Sanatorium." 


The  Penny  Piper 

gether  very  well.  This  is  with- 
out foundation  in  fact.  Stevenson 
himself  wrote  on  a  leaf  of  the 
"  Jekyll  and  Hyde  "  of  "  Dr.  Tru- 
deau's  Complete  Set,  from  the 
Author  ":  - 

.' '  Trudeau  was  all  the  winter  at  my 

side, 
I  never  spied  the  nose  of  Mr.  Hyde. ' ' 

Dr.  Trudeau  was  probably  one 
of  the  few  in  the  village  at  that 
time  who  appreciated  what  man- 
ner of  man  had  come  to  it ;  and 
it  is  clear  that  Stevenson  was 
quick  to  appreciate  the  intellectual 
qualities  of  the  man  who  came  to 
see  him,  first  with  a  cold  stetho- 

C  12  3 


of  Saranac 

scope,  then  with  the  warm  hand 
of  friendship. 

This  friendship  was  spontane- 
ous. The  nature  of  it  may  be 
judged  from  the  fact  that,  when 
they  did  not  agree,  they  did  not 
agree  to  disagree, — after  the  man- 
ner of  the  lukewarm,  —  but  quar- 
reled ! 

But  the  quarrels !  They  were  of 
the  kind  indulged  in  by  brothers 
who  part  with  black  murder  in 
their  hearts  and  burst  out  laugh- 
ing next  time  they  meet.  They 
were  quarrels  of  the  kind  in  which 
one  holds  it  a  private,  personal 
privilege  to  criticize  the  other,  but 

I   »3   3 


The  Penny  Piper 

woe  unto  the  third  person  who 
ventures  to  criticize  either  to  the 
other ! 

On  the  really  great  things  of 
life  they  were  in  perfect  accord  ; 
so  they  chose  the  most  trivial  mat- 
ters upon  which  to  differ. 

The  best  illustration  of  this  is, 
perhaps,  the  "check  story,"  which 
Dr.  Trudeau  used  to  relate,  and 
always  with  immense  delight. 
There  was  no  stenographer  pres- 
ent, and  Dr.  Trudeau  himself  did 
not  undertake  to  repeat  the  exact 
dialogue,  but  from  the  facts  and 
from  a  knowledge  of  the  two  per- 
sonalities this  is  how  it  was  :  - 

I   14] 


of  Saranac 

Stevenson  :  My  dear  Trudeau ! 
I  have  the  greatest  respect  for 
your  intelligence.  For  that  reason 
it  distresses  me  —  distresses  me! 
-to  hear  you  utter  such  fallacy. 
How  can  the  American  baggage 
system  be  superior  to  the  British 
luggage  system? 

Trudeau :  But,  my  dear  Steven- 
son, we  are  dealing  with  facts! 
I  know  that,  as  a  Britisher,  you 
are  naturally  prejudiced  - 

Stevenson  (interrupting):  I  beg 
your  pardon,  Dr.  Trudeau.  I  would 
never  allow  racial  prejudice  to 
warp  my  judgment  in  the  matter 
of  a  ten-and-sixpenny  trunk.  The 
British  system  is  the  best.  You 
hire  a  porter.  You  look  after  your 

C  15  ] 


The  Penny  Piper 

own  luggage.  At  your  destination 
you  claim  it  in  person.  It  is  not 
at  all  necessary  to  put  your  head 
out  of  the  compartment  at  every 
stop  and  cry,  like  the  Irishman : 
"  Gyard  !  Is  me  tronk  all  right  ? ' 
Trudeau  (who  has  been  waiting 
with  fortitude  .for  a  chance  to  con- 
tinue ) :  Of  course  not.  Now,  then, 
-  the  American  system !  You  are 
bound,  say,  from  New  York  to 
San  Francisco.  You  buy  your 
railway  ticket,  indicate  your  bag- 
gage to  a  baggage-master  with  a 
pencil  stuck  in  his  ear  and  a  bunch 
of  tags  in  his  hands.  He  gives 
you  a  brass  check.  In  a  week 
you  are  in  San  Francisco.  You 
have  n't  seen  or  heard  of  your 

[    16   ] 


of  Saranac 

blessed  trunk  since  you  left  New 
York ;  yet  there  it  is,  safe  and 
sound.  And  all  that  is  required 
of  you  in  San  Francisco  is  that 
brass  check.  JVbw  what  have  you 
to  say? 

Stevenson  (who  is  cornered,  but 
hates  to  admit  it ) :  We  —  ell  .  .  . 
( He  puffs  great  clouds  of  cigarette 
smoke  and  walks  up  and  down, 
greatly  agitated.  Then,  with  a 
burst  of  exasperation)  That  is  just 
you  Americans  all  over !  Checks ! 
Checks  !  Checks  !  You  eat  on  the 
check  system.  You  hang  your 
hat  on  the  check  system.  Why, 
an  American  can't  speak  of  dying 
without  saying  that  he  "  hands  in 
his  checks  "  ! 


The  Penny  Piper 

Trudeau  (twenty  years  later]  : 
He  had  me  that  time. 

After  such  animated  discussion 
one  may  picture  Dr.  Trudeau  as 
he  tramps  down  the  road  to  his 
own  house,  a  muffled  figure  in 
coonskin  cap  and  coat,  his  thick 
moccasins  crunching  on  the  frozen 
snow  under  the  clear,  snapping 
stars  of  the  Adirondack  midwinter, 
and  vowing  never  to  darken  the 
Penny  Piper's  door  again  ! 

But  next  day  Trudeau  would 
remember  that  Stevenson  was  a 
sick  man,  that  he  was  his  physician, 
and  that  it  was  his  duty  to  go  and 
see  his  patient  even  if  he  could 

C    18   ] 


of  Saranac 

never  meet  him  again  as  a  friend. 
If  he  did  n't  go,  no  doubt  the 
Penny  Piper  would  be  sitting  in 
that  eight- by- ten  room  with  the 
piano  and  the  old  desk  and  the 
penny  whistle,  and  with  all  the  air 
excluded  through  the  keyhole  by 
cigarette  smoke  and  sideward  dis- 
placement. 

Probably  about  the  same  time 
Stevenson  would  be  blowing  from 
his  whistle  that  mournful  Jacobite 
air  to  which  he  fitted  "Sing  me 
a  song  of  a  lad  that  is  gone," 
and  wondering  whether  he  ought 
not  to  put  on  his  buffalo  coat 
and  Indian  moccasins  and  carry 

C   19  3 


The  Penny  Piper 

the  hatchet  to  the  Doctor  for 
burial. 

If  it  happened  that  he  did  not 
go,  the  Doctor  would  come  sooner 
or  later — professionally,  of  course ! 
Robert  Louis  would  receive  him 
like  a  prince.  Each  would  admit 
that  the  other  was  possibly  right 
about  the  baggage  system,  except, 
perhaps,  that- 

And  as  like  as  not  they  would 
start  in  just  where  they  had  left  off; 
or,  if  that  subject  were  exhausted, 
take  up  another  for  argument,  such 
as  whether,  according  to  Trudeau's 
theory,  it  were  not  wiser  to  con- 
serve the  health  by  observing  mod- 

C    2°    ] 


of  Saranac 

eration  (say  in  the  use  of  ciga- 
rettes), or,  according  to  Steven- 
son's theory,  regard  ill  health  as 
something  altogether  outside  a 
man  and  death  merely  a  possi- 
bility of  any  minute  and  from  any 
of  a  number  of  unexpected  causes. 

In  this  connection  it  is  interest- 
ing to  hear  what  Dr.  Trudeau  has 
to  say  about  Stevenson's  death  in 
Samoa  in  1 894.  It  has  been  said 
that  he  died  of  tuberculosis.  It  has 
been  said  that  he  died  of  apoplexy. 

"  He  did  not  die  of  tuberculosis," 
says  Dr.  Trudeau,  "  as  I  made 
a  point  of  finding  out.  I  have  no 
documentary  evidence  that  he  died 

c  21 : 


The  Penny  Piper 

of  anything  else,  but  all  the  dis- 
patches from  Samoa  agreed  that 
it  was  cerebral  apoplexy.  Yet  it 
is  a  mistake  to  say  that  he  never 
had  tuberculosis.  Although,  while  I 
took  care  of  him,  he  had  none  of 
the  active  symptoms,  such  as  hem- 
orrhage, or  fever,  or  tubercle  ba- 
cilli, present,  yet  he  undoubtedly 
had  had  tuberculosis.  It  may  have 
become  active  again  after  he  left 
Saranac,  so  there  is  no  telling  just 
how  much  that  disease  may  have 
contributed  to  his  mortal  illness  at 
Samoa." 

Regarding    a    theory    brought 
forward    some   years    ago   in   a 

C    22    ] 


of  Saranac 

prominent  medical  publication,  and 
copied  extensively  in  the  news- 
papers, that  the  morbid  phase  of 
Stevenson's  genius  was  caused  by 
tubercular  toxin  in  his  blood,  Dr. 
Trudeau  laughed  heartily.  If  any- 
thing could  be  named  to  account 
for  the  production  of  such  strange 
or  morbid  tales  as  "Jekyll  and 
Hyde,"  "Olalla,"  and  "The  Merry 
Men,"  it  would  be  the  Celtic  cor- 
puscles in  his  blood! 

The  horrible  fascination  of  the 
supernatural  for  the  Scot  is  well 
known.  The  fearful  fascination  of 
the  sea,  as  exploited  in  "  The 
Merry  Men,"  is  also  a  character- 

t:  *z : 


The  Penny  Piper 

istic  of  the  high  northern  races, 
especially  of  the  Scottish  High- 
landers, who  in  ancient  days  drew 
an  infusion  of  blood  from  the  Vik- 
ings. There  was  evidence  of  the 
Viking  strain  in  Stevenson  and  his 
seagoing  forefathers.  Race  toxin 
is  the  only  influence  his  blood  may 
have  brought  to  his  writings. 

While  on  the  subject,  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  state  that  Stevenson 
was  much  interested  in  the  admi- 
rable work  Dr.  Trudeau  was  do- 
ing in  tuberculosis  research.  Unfor- 
tunately, while  on  paper  the  Penny 
Piper  could  deal  so  beautifully  with 
the  philosophy  of  illness  and  death, 

C    24    3 


of  Saranac 

his  own  physical  weakness,  and 
that  personal  sensitiveness  which 
he  so  ably  embodied  in  young  Weir 
of  Hermiston,  compelled  in  him 
a  horror  of  the  material  facts.  He 
did  not  fish  or  hunt,  because  he 
could  not  bear  the  sight  of  suffer- 
ing and  death,  even  in  animals 
that  are  regarded  as  fair  game. 

Imagine,  then,  what  happened 
when,  in  a  heroic  morrfent,  Steven- 
son ventured  into  Dr.  Trudeau's 
laboratory,  where  the  little  guinea- 
pigs  were  being  immortalized  for 
the  ultimate  benefit  of  humanity 
and  humaneness.  Had  Stevenson 
lived  to  hear  the  anti-vivisection 


The  Penny  Piper 

uproar  of  recent  years,  the  zo- 
ophiles  might  have  offered  him 
their  permanent  chairmanship.  But 
if  we  know  anything  of  the  Penny 
Piper's  spirit,  we  fancy  he  would 
have  refused  it.  The  fact  that  he 
himself  suffered  imaginative  ago- 
nies of  sympathy  for  the  guinea- 
pigs  did  not  in  the  least  becloud  his 
vision  of  the  end  toward  which  sac- 
rifice of  some  sort,  not  necessarily 
of  blood,  is  ever  the  only  means. 

Here  is  the  guinea-pig  story, 
which  illustrates  the  theory :  - 

One  day  the  Penny  Piper's 
genius  was  deeply  stirred.  The 
whistle  had  been  silent  all  morn- 

C    26] 


of  Saranac 

ing,  for  it  was  a  great  thought  he 
had  seized  upon.  It  was  that  of 
the  lantern-bearers,  the  playful 
Scottish  boys  who  carried  bull's- 
eyes  under  their  jackets  and  occa- 
sionally flashed  them  upon  aston- 
ished passers-by.  You  could  not 
see  the  lanterns,  but  it  was  a  se- 
cret joy  to  each  lad  to  know  that 
he  had  his  under  cover,  even  if 
his  whole  being  did  reek  of  oil. 

Ah!  it  was  a  grand  thought, 
this,  of  the  light  under  the  bushel 
that  smelled  of  oil,  and  in  his  lit- 
tle room  the  Penny  Piper's  pen 
moved  slowly  and  steadily  over 
the  paper : — 

C  27  ] 


The  Penny  Piper 

.  .  .  Not  a  ray  escaping,  whether 
to  conduct  your  footsteps  or  to 
make  your  glory  public ;  a  mere 
pillar  of  darkness  in  the  dark,  and 
all  the  while  deep  down  in  the 
privacy  of  your  fool's  heart,  to 
know  you  had  a  bull's-eye  at  your 
belt,  and  to  exult  and  sing  over 
the  knowledge. 

When  it  was  finished,  the  Penny 
Piper  remembered  that  Dr.  Tru- 
deau  had  promised  to  show  him 
the  mysteries  of  his  laboratory. 
Still  aglow  with  the  high  thoughts 
of  "  The  Lantern-Bearers,"  Stev- 
enson put  on  his  buffalo  coat  and 
hurried  away  through  the  snow. 

[    28    ] 


of  Saranac 

The  sight  of  the  grave  scien- 
tist bending  over  his  work  in  that 
strange  place  of  crucibles  and  tubes 
stirred  the  dreamer's  enthusiasm 
afresh.  Here  was  the  thought 
materialized  —  the  man  with  the 
bull's-eye,  who  was  thinking  less 
of  fame  than  of  the  moment's  task 
allotted. 

The  Penny  Piper  told  his  friend 
of  the  day's  work,  talking  as  only 
he  talked,  every  muscle  and  facial 
expression  in  action,  his  eyes  aglow, 
and  his  long  arms  gesturing  in  il- 
lustration. But  suddenly  he  re- 
membered why  he  had  come  to 
the  laboratory. 

C    29    ] 


The  Penny  Piper 

" Now,  Trudeau,"  said  he,  "let 
me  see  your  light!" 

Dr.  Trudeau  picked  up  a  tube 
containing  a  sickly-looking  liq- 
uid. 

"The  scum  you  see  in  this 
tube,"  said  he,  "is  consumption.  It 
is  the  cause  of  more  human  suf- 
fering than  anything  else  in  the 
world.  We  can  produce  tubercu- 
losis in  the  guinea-pig  with  it,  and 
if  we  could  cure  tuberculosis  in  the 
guinea-pig,  this  great  burden  of 
human  suffering  might  be  lifted 
from  the  world." 

Then  he  told  of  his  own  ex- 
periments upon  guinea-pigs  with 

[30 3 


of  Saranac 

cultures  of  tubercle  bacilli,  and 
produced  charts  showing  results 
that  made  similar  symptoms  in 
the  human  case  comprehensible, 
and  more  combatable.  He  pointed 
to  a  row  of  large  stoppered  bot- 
tles containing  tuberculous  organs 
of  guinea-pigs,  ghastly  evidences 
of  the  destroyer's  poison.  With 
a  bottle  in  his  hand,  Trudeau 
turned  to  his  very  silent  compan- 
ion and  —  found  that  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  had  vanished ! 

Astonished  and  puzzled,  the 
medical  scientist  laid  down  his 
charts  and  went  in  search  of  the 
Penny  Piper.  He  found  him  in  the 

n  s1  ] 


The  Penny  Piper 

open  air,  leaning  against  a  veranda 
post  and  looking  very  pale. 

Trudeau  (rushing  to  his  side): 
Stevenson,  are  you  ill? 

Stevenson  (swallowing  hard)  : 
N — no. 

Trudeau :  You  don't  look  well. 
How  do  you  feel  ? 

Stevenson  ( with  a  brave  but  sickly 
smile) :  Trudeau,  I  know — I  know 
your  lamp  is  very  bright,  but- 
to  me  it  smells  of  oil  like  the 
devil ! 

The  Penny  Piper  was  fair  above 
all  things,  however,  and  he  gen- 
erously admitted  that  the  fact  of 
an  oil  smell  upsetting  a  particular 

32 


of  Saranac 

stomach  did  not   dim  the  luster 
of  a  particular  light. 

Seven  years  after  Stevenson's 
death,  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich 
came  to  Saranac  Lake  on  account 
of  the  illness  of  his  son,  Charles. 
He  lived  on  the  side  of  Mount  Pis- 
gah  that  overlooked  the  "  hat-box  " 
where  the  Penny  Piper  lived  thir- 
teen years  before.  In  a  letter  to 
William  Dean  Howells  at  this 
time  (December,  1901 ),  Aldrich 
wrote:  "  We  are  very  literary  up 
here.  Wrhy  did  Hutton  go  to 
Jerusalem  for  '  Literary  Land- 
marks '  when  he  might  have 

c  33  n 


The  Penny  Piper 

found  plenty  of  them  in  the  Ad- 
irondacks  ?  Among  others  who 
have  left  footprints  on  the  sands 
of  time  are  Stillman,  Emerson, 
and  Stevenson." 

Referring  to  Mr.  Ho  wells 's  ad- 
mission that  up  to  that  time  he 
had  never  read  a  novel  of  Steven- 
son's, Mr.  Aldrich  wrote  in  the 
same  letter :  "  You  have  missed 
an  entertaining  writer,  though  not 
a  great  one." 

In  passing,  it  may  be  mentioned 
that  that  dear  fiction  about  Rich- 
ard Mansfield  visiting  the  Baker 
cottage  and  acting  "Jekyll  and 
Hyde  "  for  the  author's  benefit  is 

C   34   ] 


of  Sara?tac 

without  foundation.  Our  talkative 
Penny  Piper  would  surely  have 
mentioned  such  an  event  in  his 
letters  to  Henry  James,  or  J.  A. 
Symonds,  or  Sidney  Colvin.  Cer- 
tainly he  could  hardly  have  helped 
doing  so,  had  the  incident  occurred, 
to  his  collaborator  in  dramas, 
W.E.Henley.  But  he  did  not.  Dr. 
Trudeau  has  no  knowledge  of  such 
a  visit.  Andrew  Baker,  Steven- 
son's landlord,  thinks  that  the  per- 
sistent tale  grew  out  of  the  visit  of 
a  dramatic  agent  of  Boston,1  who 
came  to  Saranac  Lake  in  the  hope 

1  I  have  ascertained  since  that  the  Thes- 
pian visitor  was  Daniel  Bandmann.  (S.  C.) 

C  35  3 


The  Penny  Piper 

of  procuring  certain  dramatic  rights 
from  Stevenson. 

As  to  Stevenson's  being  "not 
very  popular,"  to  revert  to  a  sug- 
gestion in  one  of  Mr.  Aldrich's 
letters,  he  had  little  in  common 
coin  with  the  "natives"  of  that 
time,  and  the  social,  literary,  and 
intellectual  circle  was  limited.  He 
was  highly  popular  among  those  in 
the  little  colony  who  could  appre- 
ciate him ;  and  interesting,  though 
few,  are  the  true  stories  touching 
his  social  intercourse  at  this  time. 

One  dinner  of  unusual  cere- 
mony may  have  suggested  to 
Stevenson  the  sentence,  "  I  have 

[   36] 


of  Saranac 

learned  to  move  among  pompous 
menials  without  much  terror,  never 
without  much  respect." 

At  this  particular  dinner  Steven- 
son was  not  in  evening  dress.  The 
Penny  Piper  was  notoriously  un- 
conventional in  attire.  Besides,  as 
Aldrich  mentioned  later,  "  the  Sar- 
anackers  don't  dress  for  dinner, 
they  dress  for  breakfast,"  and  did 
not  Stevenson  assure  Will  H.  Low 
that  he  was  "  a  rank  Saranacker, 
a  wild  man  of  the  woods"  ? 

Anyway,  the  dinner  was  a  fine 
affair.  The  butler  appeared  at  an 
appropriate  moment  and  elevated 
a  single  eyebrow  to  convey  that 

C  37  ] 


The  Penny  Piper 

madam  was  served.  As  there  were 
more  gentlemen  present  than  la- 
dies, Dr.  Trudeau  "  took  in  "Stev- 
enson. As  the  Doctor  playfully 
offered  his  arm,  the  Penny  Piper 
clutched  it  in  a  kind  of  panic. 

Trudeau  :  What 's  the  matter  ? 

Stevenson  :  Honest,  now  —  are 
n't  you  scared  ? 

Trudeau :  Well,  not  exactly 
scared;  impressed,  perhaps. 

Stevenson  ( shaking  his  head]  : 
Trudeau,  I  'm  scared  to  death ! 

It  was  after  one  less  imposing 
dinner  that  Stevenson  expressed 
his  terror  of  a  hero-worshiping 
admirer.  She  was  of  the  type  that 

C  38  ] 


of  Saranac 

qualifies  everything  with  super- 
latives. All  through  the  evening 
she  kept  assuring  the  Penny  Piper 
that  "Jekyll  and  Hyde"  was  the 
"  weirdest,"  "  Treasure  Island  " 
the  "loveliest,"  and"  Will  o'  the 
Mill "  the  "  sweetest  "  -  ever ! 

When  Stevenson  escaped,  he 
sought  Dr.  Trudeau's  protection. 

"I  don't  mind  the  Great  Un- 
washed," he  whispered  tragically. 
"  It 's  the  Great  Washed  I  dread !  " 

From  the  literary  standpoint  the 
most  interesting  story  of  the  Penny 
Piper  and  his  friends  in  Saranac  has 
to  do  with  the  genesis  of  "The 

[   39  ] 


The  Penny  Piper 

Master  of  Ballantrae  "  and  the  be- 
ginning of  the  real  Stevenson  wo- 
man in  fiction. 

Up  to  this  time  the  women  in  his 
books,  excepting  Jim  Hawkins's 
mother  in  "  Treasure  Island,"  had 
been  somewhat  of  stage  type.  Jim 
Hawkins's  mother  was  true,  but 
Stevenson  had  his  own  deeply  hon- 
est and  just  mother  to  draw  from. 
There  was  an  elusive  girl  in  "  The 
Merry  Men,"  but  she  was  shad- 
owy ;  and  in  "  Prince  Otto"  Sera- 
phina  and  Madame  von  Rosen 
were  encased  in  court  artifice.  He 
had  not  yet  touched  the  deep 
springs  of  natural  womanhood. 

C  40  ] 


of  Saranac 

To  appreciate  the  far-reaching 
effects  of  the  incident  that  brought 
the  Penny  Piper's  magic  pen  to  the 
true  delineation  of  women  in  his  la- 
ter works,  it  is  necessary  to  begin 
at  Saranac  with  "The  Master  of 
Ballantrae  "  and  to  show  how  Gen- 
eral Custer's  widow  injected  a  fail- 
ure into  it.  But  it  was  a  failure  on 
which  success  was  to  be  built. 

Even  as  at  Saranac  the  plot  of 
"The  White  Feather"  flashed 
upon  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  "  out 
of  a  blue  sky  of  idleness,"  so  came 
the  genesis  of  "  Ballantrae  "  to  the 
Penny  Piper.  In  Stevenson's  own 
words,  this  is  how  it  was :  — 

[  41   3 


The  Penny  Piper 

I  was  walking  one  night  on  the 
verandah  of  a  small  house  in  which 
I  lived,  outside  the  hamlet  of  Sar- 
anac.  It  was  winter ;  the  night  was 
very  dark ;  the  air  extraordinarily 
clear  and  cold,  and  sweet  with  the 
purity  of  forests.  From  a  good  way 
below,  the  river  was  to  be  heard 
contending  with  ice  and  boulders ; 
a  few  lights  appeared,  scattered 
unevenly  in  the  darkness,  but  so 
far  away  as  not  to  lessen  the  sense 
of  isolation.  For  the  making  of  a 
story  here  were  fine  conditions.  .  .  . 

"  Come,"  said  I  to  my  engine, 
"  let  us  make  a  tale,  a  story  of 
many  years  and  countries,  of  the 
sea  and  the  land,  savagery  and 
civilization.  ..." 

£42 : 


of  Saranac 

Shortly  after  that  December 
night  he  was  again  at  a  dinner- 
party. Most  of  the  little  colony 
were  present,  but  for  my  purpose 
it  is  only  needful  to  mention  Mrs. 
Custer,  Dr.  Trudeau,  and  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson.  After  the  soup, 
Mrs.  Custer  opened  fire  upon  the 
Penny  Piper. 

Mrs.  Custer:  Now,  why  is  it, 
Mr.  Stevenson,  that  you  never  put 
a  real  woman  in  your  stories  ? 

Stevenson  (with  twinkling  grav- 
ity)  :  Madam,  I  have  little  knowl- 
edge of  Greek. 

Mrs.  Custer :  But  you  have  some 
knowledge  of  women,  surely! 

:  43 : 


The  Penny  Piper 

Why,  you  have  been  a  married 
man  these  seven  years  ! 

Stevenson:  With  the  result, 
Mrs.  Custer,  that  I  have  forgotten 
all  the  Greek  I  ever  knew. 

Mrs.  Custer:  But  the  public  ex- 
pects it  of  you,  and  the  feminine 
portion  demands  it.  Come  !  When 
are  we  to  be  introduced  to  the 
Stevenson  woman  in  fiction  ? 

Stevenson  (with  sudden  enthu- 
siasm) :  Mrs.  Custer !  I  promise 
you  there  shall  be  a  woman  in 
my  next  book ! 

The  Penny  Piper  regretted  his 
rash  gallantry  before  the  close  of 
the  evening.  Later,  he  confided  his 
fears  to  Dr.  Trudeau. 

[  44  ] 


of  Saranac 

Trudeau :  I  've  often  wondered, 
Stevenson,  but  never  thought  to 
ask :  Why  do  you  never  put  a  real 
woman  in  a  story  ? 

Stevenson :  Good  Heavens  !  Tru- 
deau, when  I  have  tried  I  find  she 
talks  like  a  grenadier ! 

Nevertheless,  he  kept  his  prom- 
ise to  Mrs.  Custer,  and  the  result 
is  that  wooden  effigy  in  "The 
Master  of  Ballantrae,"  who  is 
called,  for  identification's  sake, 
Alison  Durie. 

But  the  ice  was  broken,  and 
from  this  point  the  evolution  of  the 
real  Stevenson  woman  in  fiction 
is  interesting  to  trace.  Jim  Pinker- 

C  45   3 


The  Penny  Piper 

ton's  wife  in  "The  Wrecker"  is 
true  —  almost  painfully  true.  Ca- 
triona  in  "  David  Balfour  "  is  better 
-  much ;  but  both  are  girls.  It  is 
not  until  we  meet  Uma  in  "The 
Beach  of  Falesa  "  and  a  full-grown 
heroine  in  "St.  Ives"  that  we  be- 
gin to  find  boldness  and  accuracy 
in  his  strokes. 

For  this,  as  for  many  other  rea- 
sons, what  a  pity  that  death  stayed 
his  hand  in  "  Weir  of  Hermiston," 
for  in  the  elder  Kirstie  he  was 
etching  a  masterpiece  of  deep 
womanhood  —  "a  severe  case  of 
middle  age."  But  the  work  had 
progressed  far  enough  to  indicate 

c  *6 : 


of  Saranac 

beyond  cavil  that  "  Greek  "  might 
safely  be  added  to  his  accomplish- 
ments. 

Stevenson's  place  in  the  mem- 
ory of  Saranac  Lake  is  unique. 
The  people  have  forgotten  the 
actual  face  of  the  man ;  and  the 
record  of  his  life  there  —  of  the 
many  little  things  not  down  on 
the  page  of  conventional  literary 
history  -  -  is  becoming  obliterated 
by  time.  Seldom  does  a  visitor 
make  pilgrimage  to  that  little 
room  under  the  southern  gable 
where  the  Penny  Piper  tootled 
on  his  whistle  and  penned  golden 

[47 : 


The  Penny  Piper 

letters  in  the  intervals.  But  the 
echo  of  the  magic  pipe  is  still  in 
the  air,  although  the  Penny  Piper 
has  vanished. 

There  is  no  place  where  his 
works  are  more  popular  for  their 
own  sake,  aside  from  their  auth- 
or's having  lived  there ;  for  in 
ail  the  world  there  is  no  place 
that  needs  and  benefits  by  his 
brave  creed  of  living  more  than 
Saranac  Lake.  It  is  a  place  of  pa- 
tient suffering,  of  ships  that  some- 
times pass  in  the  night.  It  is,  like 
Stevenson  personally,  something 
of  a  tragedy,  but,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Penny  Piper,  none  would 

48 


THE   STEVENSON   COTTAGE 
ANDREW  BAKER  DISCUSSING  K.  L.  S.  WITH  A  LITERARY  PILGRIM 


THE  VERANDA  WHERE  STEVENSON 
WALKED  AND  DREAMED 


of  Saranac 

ever  know  it  except  from  acute 
contact  and  observation. 

There  are  over  one  thousand 
persons  in  that  Adirondack  vil- 
lage brought  there  by  the  same 
chance  that  led  Robert  Louis  Ste- 
venson to  the  hills;  and  if  they 
would  keep  their  courage  strong 
and  their  faith  in  the  world's  good- 
ness intact,  their  viewpoint  must 
of  necessity  be  that  which  Steven- 
son engraved  upon  the  rocks  of 
Mount  Baker.  It  was  indeed  "  big 
medicine"  for  the  after-comers 
that  the  Penny  Piper  made  in  the 
little  house  up  the  road. 

No  one  asserts  that  the  brief 

49 


The  Penny  Piper 

passage  of  Stevenson  through  one 
Saranac  winter  is  wholly  respon- 
sible for  the  atmosphere  of  peace 
and  good-will  which  is  a  peculiar 
and  seemingly  unchangeable  char- 
acteristic of  that  mountain  village. 
But  what  he  wrote  while  there  has 
a  tremendous  application  there, 
and  Dr.  Trudeau  pressed  the  ap- 
plication with  that  of  his  own 
broad  humanity.  The  result  is 
startling  to  the  newcomer  -  -  a 
place  with  an  atmosphere  dis- 
tinctively its  own.  It  would  take 
a  genius  to  define  this  atmosphere, 
but  the  genius  of  Thomas  Bailey 
Aldrich  did  it  when,  the  shadow 

i:  so  ] 


of  Saranac 

of  his  son's  doom  hanging  heavily 
upon  him,  he  could  write  to  Wil- 
liam Dean  Howells  :  "  There 's  a 
charm  about  the  place.  There's 
something  in  the  air  to  heal  the 
heart  of  sorrow." 

The  works  of  the  Penny  Piper 
are  ever  in  demand  at  the  village 
library,  but  there  is  one  book  in 
that  institution  which  none  may 
borrow  or  even  touch.  It  is  "  Mor- 
ley  Ernstein,"  by  G.  P.  R.  James. 

A  few  months  ago  the  libra- 
rian was  looking  over  Stevenson's 
"Letters,"  when  he  came  upon 
one  to  Mr.  E.  L.  Burlingame.  In  it 
the  Penny  Piper  feverishly  asked 

51 


The  Penny  Piper 

for  certain  works  of  "dear  old 
G.  P.  R." 

"  This  return  to  an  ancient  fa- 
vorite," wrote  the  Piper,  "hangs 
upon  an  accident.  The  Franklin 
County  Library  contains  two  works 
of  his,  '  The  Cavalier '  and  '  Mor- 
ley  Ernstein.'  I  read  the  first  with 
indescribable  amusement  —  it  was 
worse  than  I  feared,  and  yet  some- 
how engaging ;  the  second  ( to  my 
surprise)  was  better  than  I  dared 
to  hope ;  a  good,  honest,  dull,  in- 
teresting tale." 

The  librarian  laid  down  the 
volume  of  letters,  and  walked  to 
the  shelf  where  the  remaining 

C    52    1 


of  Saranac 

tatters  of  G.  P.  R.  should  be. 
"  The  Cavalier ' '  was  gone — long 
since  defunct ;  but  there  was  the 
"Morley  Ernstein,"  yellowed  and 
falling  to  pieces  with  age,  for  none 
had  thought  it  fit  to  read  since 
the  days  of  the  Penny  Piper. 
There  followed  a  sudden  demand 
for  "  Morley  Ernstein,"  by  G.  P. 
R.  James,  but  the  librarian  was 
firm.  Morley  is  now  an  honored 
pensioner,  withdrawn  from  com- 
mon traffic. 

The  creed  of  the  Penny  Piper 
is  almost  a  rule  of  mental  conduct 
laid  down  for  patients,  not  orJy 

:  53 : 


The  Penny  Piper 

by  specialists  of  Saranac  Lake,  but 
by  many  of  the  medical  fraternity 
elsewhere.  There  is  a  case  on 
record  of  a  young  man  who  ar- 
rived in  the  village  with  the  usual 
excuse  for  arriving.  He  was  ex- 
amined by  a  physician,  who  pres- 
ently asked  the  new  patient  wheth- 
er his  New  York  physician  had 
prescribed  anything. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  patient,  and  he 
produced  this  prescription  :  - 

$ 

Fresh  air, 


Read  Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 
POTTER,  M.D. 

C  54  ] 


of  Saranac 

"Continue  to  take!"  said  the 
physician. 

The  influence  of  Dr.  Trudeau 
upon  the  methods  of  anti-tuber- 
culosis fighters  is  not  without  a 
suggestion  of  the  influence  of 
Stevenson  upon  Trudeau.  When, 
as  President  of  the  Eighth  Con- 
gress of  American  Physicians  and 
Surgeons,  Dr.  Trudeau  addressed 
his  fellows  at  Washington,  he  thus 
paid  tribute  to  the  Penny  Piper 
of  Saranac,  who  had  seen  the 
light  in  his  laboratory  away  back 
in  the  dark  days  :  — 

Let  us  not,  therefore,  quench 
155  3 


The  Penny  Piper 

the  faith  nor  turn  from  the  vision 
which,  whether  we  own  it  or  not, 
we  carry,  as  Stevenson's  lantern- 
bearers  their  lanterns,  hidden  from 
the  outer  world,  and,  thus  inspired, 
many  will  reach  the  goal;  and  if 
for  most  of  us  our  achievements 
inevitably  fall  short  of  our  ideals, 
if  when  age  and  infirmity  over- 
take us  « we  come  not  within 
sight  of  the  castle  of  our  dream," 
nevertheless  all  will  be  well  with 
us,  for,  as  Stevenson  tells  us 
rightly,  "  to  travel  hopefully  is 
better  than  to  arrive,  and  the  true 
success  is  in  labor." 


THE  ENb 


Appendix 


Appendix 

Address  by  Lloyd  Osbourne  (read  by 
proxy}  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Me- 
morial to  Rdiert  Louis  Stevenson  at 
the  Baker  Cotiagc,  Saranac  Lake, 
New  York,  Octobers®,  1915. 

How  little  could  Stevenson  have  an- 
ticipated, as  he  walked  up  and  down 
the  veranda  in  the  rare  intervals  of 
a  very  bleak  sunshine,  or  (so  much 
more  often  the  case),  as  he  huddled 
close  to  the  fire  with  the  logs  hissing 
and  the  frosted  windows  steaming, 
that  twenty-nine  years  later  this  spot 
would  be  hallowed  to  many  through 
no  other  fact  than  his  once  having 
lived  here.  He  would  have  been  pro- 
foundly touched,  and  no  doubt  as 
profoundly  dismayed.  He  had  ever 

C  59  ] 


Appendix 

too  much  humor  to  take  himself  seri- 
ously. I  can  almost  hear  him  cry  out: 
"Good  Heavens,  I  hope  nobody  is 
going  to  take  me  as  the  model  of  any- 
thing." Yet  deep  down,  of  course,  he 
would  have  felt  a  very  human  thrill 
of  pleasure.  It  is  no  small  thing  in 
this  forgetful  \vorld  for  any  one  to  be 
remembered  years  after  his  death ;  to 
have  one's  memory  kept  green  and 
one's  personal  mementoes  treasured  ; 
to  evoke  from  the  hearts  of  the  living, 
and  those  strangers,  affection  and 
homage. 

Once  in  this  house  Stevenson  laid 
down  the  copy  of  "Don  Quixote" 
he  was  reading,  and  said,  with  a  curi- 
ous poignancy  that  lingers  still  in  my 
ears:  "  That's  what  I  am — just  an- 
other Don  Quixote. "  I  think  this  was 
the  most  illuminating  thing  he  ever  said 
about  himself.  It  was  the  realization 

C  60  ] 


GUTZON   BORGLUM   AND   HIS  TRIBUTE  TO   R.  L.   S. 


MR.   AND   MRS.    ANDREW   BAKER 


Appendix 

that  his  high-flown  ideals,  his  super- 
sensitive  honor,  his  vehement  resent- 
ment of  wrorig  and  injustice  were  per- 
haps hopelessly  at  discord  with  the 
world  he  lived  in  —  the  momentary 
faltering  of  a  great  altruist.  It  is  sur- 
prising that  in  his  essay  on  "Books 
that  have  Influenced  Me  "  I  believe  he 
made  no  mention  of  "Don  Quixote," 
yet  in  conversation  I  can  recall  his 
referring  to  it  often—  "that  it  was 
the  saddest  book  he  had  ever  read  ' ' ; 
"that  Don  Quixote  was  the  great- 
est gentleman  in  fiction";  "  that  the 
Duke  and  Duchess  were  a  pair  of 
detestable  cads  to  make  sport  of  the 
old  fellow,  and  he  their  guest. ' '  More- 
over, he  had  even  stumbled  through 
the  original  in  his  halting,  laborious 
Spanish. 

Stevenson  had  a  wonderful  reading 
voice;  I   have  never  heard  any  one 

C  61   ] 


Appendix 


who  could  equal  him ;  in  listening  to 
him  one  was  stirred  by  an  indescrib- 
able sense  of  romance,  of  emotion,— 
of  the  heartstrings  being  played  upon. 
I  imagine,  from  what  I  have  heard, 
that  Charles  Dickens  possessed  the 
same  magic  quality  of  evolving  so  com- 
plete an  illusion  that  the  fictive  char- 
acters seemed  alive — that  one  seemed 
to  see  as  well  as  hear  them  —  that  the 
scenes  merged  imperceptibly  from  de- 
scription into  poetic  fact.  In  the  long 
winter  evenings  in  Saranac,  Steven- 
son read  aloud  "Othello,"  "The 
Tempest,"  "  Julius  Caesar,"  and 
"Macbeth";  read  them  with  mant- 
ling face  and  increasing  enthusiasm 
till  the  old  room  seemed  to  disappear 
in  the  glittering  pageantry  and  match- 
less, swelling  periods  of  Shakespeare. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  regrettable 
things  about  Stevenson  that  his  long 

62 


Appendix 

hair  and  strange  attire  are  always  as- 
sumed to  be  an  affectation.  On  the 
contrary,  he  was  a  man  absolutely  de- 
void of  pose,  and  hated  it  and  derided 
it  in  others.  But  during  his  prolonged 
illnesses,  when  often  for  weeks  at  a 
time  he  would  be  condemned  to  lie  in 
the  same  position  lest  a  single  move- 
ment might  bring  on  a  fresh  hemor- 
rhage of  the  lungs,  his  hair  would 
grow  excessively  long ;  as  cutting  it 
afterwards  often  caused  him  to  catch 
cold  (and  a  cold  to  him  meant  a  repe- 
tition of  the  frightful  illness),  it  was 
left  much  as  it  was,  save  for  a  slight 
trimming.  The  shawls,  cloaks,  etc., 
so  familiar  and  so  fantastic,  in  his 
photographs,  were  only  too  often  seized 
up  hastily  and  thrown  over  his  night- 
gown to  keep  him  from  the  fatigue 
of  dressing.  The  truth  is,  that  until 
he  went  to  Samoa,  where  he  enjoyed 

I  63   ] 


Appendix 

a  sufficiency  of  health  that  allowed 
him  to  dress  and  wear  his  hair  in  the 
ordinary  manner,  every  day  might 
have  been  his  last.  So  far,  indeed, 
from  his  long  hair  and  singular  cloth- 
ing being  a  mark  of  affectation,  they 
are  a  pathetic  reminder  of  his  sick- 
room, and  show  how  rarely  he  emerged 
from  it  into  the  light  of  day. 

It  is  not  easy  for  those  who  loved 
him  to  forgive  such  tales  as  his  walk- 
ing down  Piccadilly—  "very  jauntily," 
as  the  book  observes  —  in  a  lady's  fur 
coat,  pilfered  from  a  party,  and  with 
a  bunch  of  daffodils  at  his  neck ;  and 
similar  falsehoods,  too  often  malicious 
in  their  origin.  I  would  beg  all  ad- 
mirers of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  not 
to  credit  such  idiocies,  which  some 
people,  who  knew  him  well,  have  not 
been  ashamed  to  put  into  circulation. 
It  is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  more  sue- 

[   64   ] 


Appendix 


cessful  form  of  disparagement,  nor  one 
better  calculated  to  rouse  dislike  and 
scorn. 

I  wish  I  could  write  more,  and  that 
better,  of  this  high-minded,  high- 
hearted, generous,  inspiring  man, 
whose  life  was  a  tragedy  of  ill  health 
redeemed  by  an  heroic  courage.  That 
he  faltered  at  times  —  that  he  had  his 
moments  of  despair  —  only  serves  to 
make  his  intrepid  spirit  shine  the 
brighter,  and  aids  us  to  emulate  him 
in  our  lesser  trials.  I  think  those  who 
honor  his  memory  honor  themselves, 
for  it  is  the  generous  who  appreciate 
generosity,  and  the  courageous,  cour- 
age, and  the  charitable,  charity  and 
kindness,  and  it  is  in  fellow-feeling 
that  this  little  party  assembles  here 
to-day  to  pay  a  beautiful  tribute  to 
the  dead. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


I 


A    001  441  603    6 


